Conventionally, a fishing reel is well-known which has a spool supported rotatably to a reel body, a drive mechanism for driving the spool, and a clutch mechanism interposed in a driving force transmission system of the drive mechanism, the clutch mechanism engaging to rotate the spool through the drive mechanism for winding a fishing line on the spool and disengaging to allow the spool to freely rotate for casting a fishing line.
The line wound onto the spool, when cast, is drawn by the weight of a fishing rig at the end of the line, at which time the spool rotates faster than the drawn line to cause a backlash, whereby the line may get twisted or enter between the spool and the reel body. Therefore, a brake means is provided to control the free rotation of the spool.
The brake means generally employs a centrifugal brake which exerts the braking action by slidably contact of brake shoes with a brake drum. Accordingly, a problem exists in that the braking effect varies due to wearing of the brake shoe.
In order to solve the above problem, a fishing reel provided with a magnet brake has been proposed which has a magnet and an electric conductor. One of the magnet and electric conductor is fixed to the reel body and the other rotates together with the spool to generate an eddy current by the rotary flux, so that the rotary member at the brake, under Fleming's left-hand rule, is subjected to a magnetic force in a direction reverse to its rotation, thereby exerting braking effect on the spool. The stationary member is made movable with respect to the reel body and an adjuster is provided axially outwardly of the spool and is operable to adjust the relative position of the magnet with respect to the electric conductor.
This braking method, which has no contact portion, can solve the problem of changing the braking effect due to the wearing of a braking member and also the adjuster can control the braking action in proportion to the number of rotations of the spool. However, the adjuster cannot adjust the braking effect in response to variations in the number of rotations of the spool. In other words, if a large braking effect is preadjusted to avoid the occurrence of backlash, the spool, at the initial stage of casting, is subjected to a large braking effect which results in a smaller casting distance. On the other hand, the braking effect, when preset to a minimum with respect to the number of rotations of the spool at the initial stage of casting, will permit casting to a greater distance, but easily creates backlash of the spool.